by Robert Reed
be remembered the way he intended .”
He looked at her suspiciously . “That cough—”
“No, it’s not Thurston’s Disease . It’s that pipe . It’s rancid .”
“It helps me think,” Kramer said .
“You could try cigarettes—or candy,” she suggested .
“I’d rather smoke a pipe .”
“There’s cancer of the lip and tongue,” she said helpfully .
“Don’t quote Ochsner . I don’t agree with him . And besides, you
smoke cigarettes, which are infinitely worse.”
“Only four or five a day. I don’t saturate my system with nico-
tine .”
“In another generation,” Kramer observed, “you’d have run
through the streets of the city brandishing an ax smashing saloons .
You’re a lineal descendent of Carrie Nation .” He puffed quietly until
his head was surrounded by a nimbus of smoke . “Stop trying to
reform me,” he added . “You haven’t been here long enough .”
“Not even God could do that, according to the reports I’ve heard,”
she said .
He laughed . “I suppose my reputation gets around .”
“It does . You’re an opinionated slave driver, a bully, an intellec-
tual tyrant, and the best pathologist in this center .”
“The last part of that sentence makes up for unflattering honesty
of the first,” Kramer said. “At any rate, once we realized the situation
we went to work to correct it . Institutes like this were established
everywhere the disease appeared for the sole purpose of examining,
treating, and experimenting with the hope of finding a cure. This
section exists for the evaluation of treatment . We check the human
cases, and the primates in the experimental laboratories . It is our
duty to find out if anything the boys upstairs try shows any promise.
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 81
We were a pretty big section once, but Thurston’s virus has whittled
us down . Right now there is just you and me . But there’s still enough
work to keep us busy . The experiments are still going on, and there
are still human cases, even though the virus has killed off most of
the susceptibles . We’ve evaluated over a thousand different drugs
and treatments in this Institute alone .”
“And none of them have worked?”
“No—but that doesn’t mean the work’s been useless . The re-
search has saved others thousands of man hours chasing false leads .
In this business negative results are almost as important as positive
ones . We may never discover the solution, but our work will keep
others from making the same mistakes .”
“I never thought of it that way .”
“People seldom do . But if you realize that this is international,
that every worker on Thurston’s Disease has a niche to fill, the pic-
ture will be clearer . We’re doing our part inside the plan . Others are,
too . And there are thousands of labs involved . Somewhere, someone
will find the answer. It probably won’t be us, but we’ll help get the
problem solved as quickly as possible . That’s the important thing .
It’s the biggest challenge the race has ever faced—and the most im-
portant . It’s a question of survival .” Kramer’s voice was sober . “We
have to solve this . If Thurston’s Disease isn’t checked, the human
race will become extinct. As a result, for the first time in history all
mankind is working together .”
“All? You mean the Communists are, too?”
“Of course . What’s an ideology if there are no people to follow
it?” Kramer knocked the ashes out of his pipe, looked at the labora-
tory clock and shrugged . “Ten minutes more,” he said, “and these
tubes will be ready . Keep an eye on that clock and let me know .
Meantime you can straighten up this lab and find out where things
are. I’ll be in the office checking the progress reports.” He turned
abruptly away, leaving her standing in the middle of the cluttered
laboratory .
“Now what am I supposed to do here?” Mary wondered aloud .
“Clean up, he says . Find out where things are, he says . Get acquainted
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 82
with the place, he says . I could spend a month doing that .” She
looked at the littered bench, the wall cabinets with sliding doors
half open, the jars of reagents sitting on the sink, the drainboard, on
top of the refrigerator and on the floor. The disorder was appalling.
“How he ever manages to work in here is beyond me . I suppose that
I’d better start somewhere—perhaps I can get these bottles in some
sort of order first.” She sighed and moved toward the wall cabinets.
“Oh well,” she mused, “I asked for this .”
“Didn’t you hear that buzzer?” Kramer asked .
“Was that for me?” Mary said, looking up from a pile of bottles
and glassware she was sorting .
“Partly . It means they’ve sent us another post-mortem from up-
stairs .”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know—man or monkey, it makes no difference . What-
ever it is, it’s Thurston’s Disease . Come along . You might as well
see what goes on in our ultra modern necropsy suite .”
“I’d like to .” She put down the bottle she was holding and fol-
lowed him to a green door at the rear of the laboratory .
“Inside,” Kramer said, “you will find a small anteroom, a shower,
and a dressing room . Strip, shower, and put on a clean set of lab
coveralls and slippers which you will find in the dressing room.
You’ll find surgical masks in the wall cabinet beside the lockers. Go
through the door beyond the dressing room and wait for me there .
I’ll give you ten minutes .”
“We do this both ways,” Kramer said as he joined her in the nar-
row hall beyond the dressing room . “We’ll reverse the process going
out .”
“You certainly carry security to a maximum,” she said through
the mask that covered the lower part of her face .
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he said as he opened a door
in the hall . “Note the positive air pressure,” he said . “Theoretically
nothing can get in here except what we bring with us . And we try not
to bring anything .” He stood aside to show her the glassed-in cubicle
overhanging a bare room dominated by a polished steel post-mortem
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 83
table that glittered in the harsh fluorescent lighting. Above the table
a number of jointed rods and clamps hung from the ceiling . A low
metal door and series of racks containing instruments and glassware
were set into the opposite wall together with the gaping circular ori-
fice of an open autoclave.
“We work by remote control, just like they do at the AEC . See
those handlers?” He pointed to the control console set into a small
stainless steel table standing beside the sheet of glass at the far end
of the cubicle . “They’re connected to those gadgets up there .” He in-
dicated the jointed arms hanging over the autopsy table in the room
beyond . “I could perform a maj
or operation from here and never
touch the patient . Using these I can do anything I could in person
with the difference that there’s a quarter inch of glass between me
and my work. I have controls that let me use magnifiers, and even
do microdissection, if necessary .”
“Where’s the cadaver?” Mary asked .
“Across the room, behind that door,” he said, waving at the low,
sliding metal partition behind the table . “It’s been prepped, decon-
taminated and ready to go .”
“What happens when you’re through?”
“Watch .” Dr . Kramer pressed a button on the console in front
of him. A section of flooring slid aside and the table tipped. “The
cadaver slides off that table and through that hole . Down below is a
highly efficient crematorium.”
Mary shivered . “Neat and effective,” she said shakily .
“After that the whole room is sprayed with germicide and steril-
ized with live steam . The instruments go into the autoclave, and
thirty minutes later we’re ready for another post-mortem .”
“We use the handlers to put specimens into those jars,” he said,
pointing to a row of capped glass jars of assorted sizes on a wall rack
behind the table . “After they’re capped, the jars go onto that carrier
beside the table . From here they pass through a decontamination
chamber and into the remote-control laboratory across the hall where
we can run biochemical and histological techniques . Finished slides
and mounted specimens then go through another decontamination
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 84
process to the outside lab . Theoretically, this place is proof against
anything .”
“It seems to be,” Mary said, obviously impressed . “I’ve never
seen anything so elegant .”
“Neither did I until Thurston’s Disease became a problem .”
Kramer shrugged and sat down behind the controls . “Watch, now,”
he said as he pressed a button . “Let’s see what’s on deck—man or
monkey . Want to make a bet? I’ll give you two to one it’s a monkey .”
She shook her head .
The low door slid aside and a steel carriage emerged into the
necropsy room bearing the nude body of a man . The corpse gleamed
pallidly under the harsh shadowless glare of the fluorescents in the
ceiling as Kramer, using the handlers, rolled it onto the post-mortem
table and clamped it in place on its back . He pushed another button
and the carriage moved back into the wall and the steel door slid
shut . “That’ll be decontaminated,” he said, “and sent back upstairs
for another body . I’d have lost,” he remarked idly . “Lately the posts
have been running three to one in favor of monkeys .”
He moved a handler and picked up a heavy scalpel from the in-
strument rack . “There’s a certain advantage to this,” he said as he
moved the handler delicately . “These gadgets give a tremendous
mechanical advantage . I can cut right through small bones and car-
tilage without using a saw .”
“How nice,” Mary said . “I expect you enjoy yourself .”
“I couldn’t ask for better equipment,” he replied noncommittally .
With deft motion of the handler he drew the scalpel down across
the chest and along the costal margins in the classic inverted “Y”
incision. “We’ll take a look at the thorax first,” he said, as he used
the handlers to pry open the rib cage and expose the thoracic viscera .
“Ah! Thought so! See that?” He pointed with a small handler that
carried a probe . “Look at those lungs .” He swung a viewer into place
so Mary could see better . “Look at those abscesses and necrosis . It’s
Thurston’s Disease, all right, with secondary bacterial invasion .”
The grayish solidified masses of tissue looked nothing like the
normal pink appearance of healthy lungs . Studded with yellowish
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 85
spherical abscesses they lay swollen and engorged within the gaping
cavity of the chest .
“You know the pathogenesis of Thurston’s Disease?” Kramer
asked .
Mary shook her head, her face yellowish-white in the glare of the
fluorescents.
“It begins with a bronchial cough,” Kramer said . “The virus at-
tacks the bronchioles first, destroys them, and passes into the deeper
tissues of the lungs . As with most virus diseases there is a transitory
leukopenia—a drop in the total number of white blood cells—and
a rise in temperature of about two or three degrees . As the virus
attacks the alveolar structures, the temperature rises and the white
blood cell count becomes elevated. The lungs become inflamed
and painful . There is a considerable quantity of lymphoid exudate
and pleural effusion . Secondary invaders and pus-forming bacteria
follow the viral destruction of the lung tissue and form abscesses .
Breathing becomes progressively more difficult as more lung tissue
is destroyed . Hepatization and necrosis inactivate more lung tissue
as the bacteria get in their dirty work, and finally the patient suf-
focates .”
“But what if the bacteria are controlled by antibiotics?”
“Then the virus does the job . It produces atelectasis followed by
progressive necrosis of lung tissue with gradual liquefaction of the
parenchyma . It’s slower, but just as fatal . This fellow was lucky . He
apparently stayed out of here until he was almost dead . Probably
he’s had the disease for about a week . If he’d have come in early,
we could have kept him alive for maybe a month . The end, however,
would have been the same .”
“It’s a terrible thing,” Mary said faintly .
“You’ll get used to it . We get one or two every day .” He shrugged .
“There’s nothing here that’s interesting,” he said as he released the
clamps and tilted the table . For what seemed to Mary an intermi-
nable time, the cadaver clung to the polished steel . Then abruptly
it slid off the shining surface and disappeared through the square
hole in the floor. “We’ll clean up now,” Kramer said as he placed
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 86
the instruments in the autoclave, closed the door and locked it, and
pressed three buttons on the console .
From jets embedded in the walls a fine spray filled the room with
fog .“Germicide,” Kramer said . “Later there’ll be steam . That’s all for
now . Do you want to go?”
Mary nodded .
“If you feel a little rocky there’s a bottle of Scotch in my desk . I’ll
split a drink with you when we get out of here .”
“Thanks,” Mary said . “I think I could use one .”
“Barton! Where is the MacNeal stain!” Kramer’s voice came
from the lab . “I left it on the sink and it’s gone!”
“It’s with the other blood stains and reagents . Second drawer
from the right in the big cabinet . There’s a label on the drawer,”
Mary called from the office. “If you can wait until I finish filing
these papers, I’ll come in and help you .”
�
��I wish you would,” Kramer’s voice was faintly exasperated .
“Ever since you’ve organized my lab I can’t find anything.”
“You just have a disorderly mind,” Mary said, as she slipped the
last paper into its proper folder and closed the file. “I’ll be with you
in a minute .”
“I don’t dare lose you,” Kramer said as Mary came into the lab .
“You’ve made yourself indispensable . It’d take me six months to
undo what you’ve done in one . Not that I mind,” he amended, “but
I was used to things the way they were .” He looked around the or-
derly laboratory with a mixture of pride and annoyance . “Things are
so neat they’re almost painful .”
“You look more like a pathologist should,” Mary said as she
deftly removed the tray of blood slides from in front of him and
began to run the stains . “It’s my job to keep you free to think .”
“Whose brilliant idea is that? Yours?”
“No—the Director’s . He told me what my duties were when I
came here . And I think he’s right . You should be using your brain
rather than fooling around with blood stains and sectioning tissues .”
PANDEMIC, by J. F. Bone | 87
“But I like to do things like that,” Kramer protested . “It’s relax-
ing .”
“What right have you to relax,” Mary said . “Outside, people are
dying by the thousands and you want to relax . Have you looked at
the latest mortality reports?”
“No—”
“You should . The WHO estimates that nearly two billion people
have died since Thurston’s Disease first appeared in epidemic pro-
portions . That’s two out of three . And more are dying every day . Yet
you want to relax .”
“I know,” Kramer said, “but what can we do about it . We’re
working but we’re getting no results .”
“You might use that brain of yours,” Mary said bitterly . “You’re
supposed to be a scientist . You have facts . Can’t you put them to-
gether?”
“I don’t know .” He shrugged, “I’ve been working on this prob-
lem longer than you think . I come down here at night—”
“I know . I clean up after you .”
“I haven’t gotten anywhere . Sure, we can isolate the virus . It
grows nicely on monkey lung cells . But that doesn’t help . The thing
has no apparent antigenicity . It parasitizes, but it doesn’t trigger any